Reviews

[...]one comes away from his book with the impression that Reagan and Clinton understood the country, global trends, and the presidency, while the Bushes and Obama were place-holders less capable of meeting the challenges of their eras. In this regard, I was slightly disappointed with an organization that relies on a traditional approach defined by presidential terms; thus many themes - immigration, the environment, trade, and others - transcend the artificial schedules of four-year White House tenures as they persist regardless of the office-holder. [...]the political revelations are always surprising, even if unbelievable! [...]tidbits as a whopping 49 percent of people polled just four years after he left office believed that Reagan's economic policies had failed (130), or that some 183 members of Congress opposed the motion authorizing military force in the Gulf War in 1991, the largest opposition since the War of 1812 (142), or that Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign helped lower marijuana use among high-school seniors (110) give the lie to pundits and political hacks from either liberal or conservative persuasions prone to perpetuate myths on either side.